Chapter 12: Sub-Immortal
A/N: Hello all, I'd like to inform you chapter 11 had more views than chapter 10… meaning several of you didn't realize I posted two chapters that day and because 11 had a bit of a timeskip you didn't notice. So please make sure you didn't cheat yourself out of a chapter lol
Also, I'd like to recommend 'One eye, Full of Wisdom' the author, MrBright01 wanted to do so for my story and I went to read his since he was doing me the favor and I must say it was worth my time, very good Kakashi story =) 27 chapters on it so far, unless he beats me to updating lol.
Anyhow, on with the story. Enjoy
The tendrils of Jiongu had Gai completely apprehended and the Jonin swore the more he struggled the worse it got.
"You all know what to do?" Another Jonin asked from behind the bushes eyeing the clearing carefully. Both team's Genin nodded, some more confident than others.
Eyeing them with reluctant satisfaction, "Then let's move… now," Kakashi gave the order.
The teams dispersed in an instant. Team seven rushed to provide aid to team nine's Genin while team six made a move to set Gai free. Neji leapt into the bushes the second he saw them coming. Kisame raised an eyebrow at the move as he blocked another swing by Lee and took notice of the reinforcements. Sakura grabbed the still recovering Tenten and turned around to get her in a safe distance. Ino came to an abrupt stop, her job was to get the Hyuga guy but he ran off just as they made their move…
Lee allowed the sudden interference to distract him and Kisame was able to sweep his legs before jumping back to avoid a barrage of shuriken from Kakashi and Sasuke. Lee recovered from his shock but Sasuke got in his way. "Stay put," The Uchiha ordered. "Kakashi-sensei will take it from here." Lee reluctantly backed down, assuming Sasuke was merely doing what his sensei asked him to do.
Kakashi meanwhile pressed on his assault. "RASENGAN!" he bellowed, but the ex-Mist shinobi narrowly slipped out of the radius of his attack, causing the Hatake's jutsu to rather rapidly grind through a tree.
Kisame chuckled amusingly. "Interesting…" The Akatsuki member almost failed to notice the surprise attack from behind him as he barely swerved his body left to avoid the gentle fist strike before grabbing Neji Hyuga by the wrist.
"Not bad kid," He complimented before smashing him in the knees and tossing him aside. "I should've expected you were up to something; you hadn't struck me as a coward."
"NEJI!" Lee shouted with concern.
"I'm fine!" The furious and injured Genin snapped as he struggled to his feet, clamping a hand on one of his kneecaps.
Kisame made a sign Kakashi was sure he'd seen on a recent mission. "Ninja art: Hidden Mist jutsu."
"BYAKUGAN!" Neji forced himself on instinct and pointed where the Akatsuki went. "That way! I think he's trying to regroup."
Meanwhile…
"MULTI-SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!" Naruto announcing, signing as he jumped as high as he could.
"What?!" Kakuzu swerved his head to see a new face multiply into more than a dozen, each one reaching for kunai and senbon. They- or he was another mere brat with short blonde hair wearing an orange jumpsuit and had strange, noticeable whisker marks on his cheeks. Where did he come from?
Furious, the ex-Waterfall ninja discarded Gai and ran to avoid the deadly rain of projectiles. He nearly escaped the radius of which the Naruto's covered but had to settle for deflecting several with Jiongu and even taking a few hits while activating the Earth Spear technique. Idiot. I should have used the other Leaf shinobi as a shield… oh well. He berated his course of action.
"Graugh damn it!" One of the Naruto's blurted. "Charge!" Another ordered and Kakuzu braced himself as all of the orange clothed figures thrush at him in force. After only a couple seconds the Akatsuki decided to charge right at the crowd fearlessly.
His foot connected with the first clone, 'killing' it in one swift blow. The second Naruto diverted passed Kakuzu, running towards Gai. The Akatsuki member raised an eyebrow but shifted his sickly green irises back to the matter at hand. Clones swarmed around him, but the inexperienced copies of a mere Genin were no match for an S-class ninja. One after another, Kakuzu reduced them to smoke until he finally knocked one back that didn't explode.
He skidded across the ground, a light cloud of dirt rising around him. "I found you," The bounty hunter smirked though no one could see it.
"Gai-sensei? Are you all right?"
"I'm f-fine. Never been better! The fires of youth still rage within me!" The shadow clone stared at him with a face of disbelief.
"So, who are you? And how could you know that we would cross paths with these adversaries?"
The blonde hesitated to reply. "I-I'm.. Nar… I mean Ki- err…" he sighed. "Kiba Inuzuka," he finally settled. "The Hokage sent us to relieve your squad because she needed you back at the village, looks like you got lucky." Gai didn't even seem to notice how much the Genin struggled to introduce himself by name.
The former Hidden Waterfall ninja took an intimidating step forward towards the real Naruto who was trying to stand back up. One of the last remaining shadow clones stepped in between them with a look of sheer determination. It amused Kakuzu that this kid, clone or not, thought he could really do anything to stop him after witnessing the demise of his lookalikes. "Very well…" Without further warning, his fist bolted for his face but the Genin caught it. Kakuzu furrowed his eyebrows and feigned with his other before bringing his right leg up for a kick but Naruto blocked it.
"Impossible," the annoyed S-Class criminal grunted, pulling his hand free and going on the offensive with a multitude of strikes that each was blocked or dodged. Then he undid the Jiongu threads on his right wrist and shot his detached fist out at the blonde, catching him off-guard. He impacted with Naruto's face and then intertwined the tendrils around the boy's neck. The boy exploded into smoke revealing a log. Substitution? No way The next thing Kakuzu knew he was being hurdled away by a staggering kick to the side of his head.
The Akatsuki tumbled through the grass but recovered with a somersault and propped himself back up and into a stance immediately. Through his peripheral he caught a glimpse of a sort of black line advancing towards him rapidly. Not knowing what kind of jutsu he was dealing with he retreated tactfully until the line seemed to reach its limit. He must have a range… The bounty hunter presumed, finding the castor of the jutsu was a different Naruto. He eyed the blondes with interest. "Reveal yourself," he commanded.
One Naruto appeared confused. "What?"
"Don't try and take me for a fool; you are not who you appear to be," Kakuzu analyzed with an intimidating sense of calm and collectiveness.
The Naruto he had been fighting gave a shrug accompanied by a smirk. "I guess it doesn't come as a surprise that you would figure it out so quickly," she digressed, dispelling the transformation jutsu. Two others, the one with the line jutsu which Kakuzu realized was actually a shadow and the one that had avoided him to check on Gai Maito dispelled their own transformation jutsu.
"I never liked charades anyway," one of them remarked. It was the one standing by Gai, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a small dog on top of his head and face markings Kakuzu recognized as an Inuzuka.
One of the Genin was in fact the one he had appeared to be fighting, the one who possessed the shadow clone jutsu. A formidable technique coming from a mere brat… In addition to him was the third Genin of his team, the shadow user with pineapple shaped black hair sporting a jacket with chain mail. I'll have to watch out for that one, I don't know what his jutsu is capable of and he's sneaky. Clearly a long range fighter… his limitations alone ought to be enough to hold him at bay as long as I watch myself.
The one Kakuzu found truly interesting however was the Jonin commander. She wore a skintight golden shirt covered with chain mail and purple miniskirt, a slightly oversized tan jacket around it. Her hair was as purple as the skirt, in a bizarre style with a spiky texture to it and also wore a familiar pair of earrings shaped as 9's. Wait, nines? Ahh of course, her. "I should have recognized you sooner; after all you are in the bingo book."
The confident kunoichi smirked back with interest. "So you think you know who I am, do ya?"
"Anko Mitarashi. Former student of my now-colleague, Orochimaru. Nicknamed in the bingo book as the 'Snake Mistress of the Leaf,' a Jonin level ninja that is projected to be qualified for the ANBU black OPs. Has knowledge of unique snake jutsu as well as their summons. Arguably the most fearsome kunoichi from the Leaf aside from Tsunade Senju."
The Genin stared at him with a touch of amazement that he dropped those specific details without ever meeting her before in real life. "If I didn't know better I'd say that sounded like respect, but I doubt the Akatsuki are prone to such feelings."
Kakuzu's eyebrow arose. "You have heard of the Akatsuki…"
Anko smirked at him. "You didn't think that I haven't spent time trying to track down that conniving bitch of a sensei of mine did you?"
When could she have possibly been doing that? Shikamaru thought to himself. She spends all of her time training with us and doing missions practically. Unless she forfeited her social life entirely along with sleep there's no way she could have the time! Then again, couldn't she be talking about before taking team six?
The group visibly tensed as the second Akatsuki landed beside his partner. "Kakuzu," he acknowledged. "I see you were interrupted as well… how rude."
Kakuzu's eyes widened only slightly as the rest of the Leaf ninja halted their pursuit having caught up with Kisame. "Two backup squads in addition to the main squad for a simple bodyguard mission to relieve a singular team?" The bounty hunter spoke, showing obvious signs of suspicion.
"Why would the Hidden Leaf send Genin to fight us? There must be some other reason for their numbers… They didn't know we were coming," Hoshigaki decided.
"I'm not insinuating that they did," he scowled. "We're missing something that's for sure."
"Does it really matter?" The shark inquired.
"Perhaps not, but she knows about the Akatsuki, which means the Hidden Leaf knows of our organization. I wonder… how much do they know…" He wondered as both Akatsuki gazes shifted to Anko.
Anko frowned as she realized she shouldn't have been so careless as to let them see that she already knew of the Akatsuki's existence. Damn it… they don't need to know they're on our radar. Even worse: what if they decide Orochimaru can't be trusted because I was stupid enough to make it sound like I, his former student was the one who found out in the first place. Kakuzu is the type of guy who analyzes everything deeply like Shikamaru… though not to the same strategic extent. If he figures out the truth it could get sensei killed! Anko's fisted clenched tightly. No… shut up Anko. They can't relay shit back to Pein if they both die here and now…
Shikamaru watched Anko's well masked inner turmoil absentmindedly. Something didn't add up. They had known Anko for over three months, and she didn't like discussing the topic of her sensei. She only brought him up when it was for the purpose of teaching us something he taught her. But just now was the first time she ever showed any real animosity towards the Snake Sannin. She also seemed to know who they were dealing with, whereas Kakashi appeared to be left in the dark. Also, he noticed how surprised Kakuzu seemed when she said Akatsuki.
He had called Orochimaru a 'colleague' which didn't fit the script at all. It was talked about all across the village when the legendary Sannin was exiled. Rumors were just rumors and they all varied and had their own unique twist to what Orochimaru had supposedly done. There were a handful of things that consistently fell in line with every rumor he heard though… The most notable two being that he violated human rights… of course the rumors of what he specifically did were rather abundant and then the second being that he resisted arrest and actually fought his way out of the village wounding several ANBU members. Why in the hell would Orochimaru become a bounty hunter? That didn't hold any logic, unless the 'Akatsuki' was bigger than Shikamaru would've thought and they needed to cash in bounties to fund whatever their organization's real purpose was. A purpose that Orochimaru actually fit into. Just what in the hell is going on here…
"Kakashi Hatake…" Kakuzu grunted, looking over all of the ninja that had followed Kisame. "It would seem we've struck gold today, Kisame. Between our cash cow," he gestured the corpse he left on the ground earlier. "The Copy ninja, the Green Beast and the Snake Mistress we're in for a hefty payout. I'm willing to bet that Kakashi is worth more than the original target even…" The bounty hunter greedily explained to his partner.
"You can't actually believe that you can beat all of us by yourselves!" Gai regarded them confidently.
"YES! Gai-sensei is right! You should surrender now or be pummeled by our greater numbers and passionate teamwork steaming from the power of youth!" Lee joined.
Sweat dropped on the back of pretty much every ninja present, on both sides. "Who are these weirdos anyway…?" Sakura whispered but got no response. And what the hell is up with those eyebrows!? Inner-Sakura flipped.
Gai smiled and his teeth shined an unnaturally bright flash. "I couldn't have put it better myself, Lee!"
Lee looked at his sensei with adoration and began to tear up hysterically. "Wh-Why you have no idea how much it means to me that you said that! Thank you Gai-sensei!"
"You're welcome Lee!" He replied tearing up a little as well.
"Oh GAI-SENSEI!"
"LEE!"
"GAI-SENSEI!"
"LEE!"
Teams six and seven stared on with disbelief and perhaps even a little denial that they were truly seeing this. Kakashi and Anko were not completely unfazed but looked more annoyed and disappointed… maybe even ashamed than shocked. Both Shikamaru and Sasuke had visible eye twitches.
"You were right about something for once billboard brow! They're lunatics!" Ino grumbled but Sakura appeared oblivious to the insult.
"I told you they were freaks…" Kisame reminded his partner.
"Will you shut up? You idiot." The amusement from Kisame's face did not fade however, accustomed to Kakuzu's 'pleasant personality.'
By now even Neji's face was flushed with embarrassment. Sure he was used to being humiliated by Gai and Lee but to this extent… in front of everyone who just saved them! Not to mention the two rogue ninja, though their opinions were irrelevant. Tenten on the other hand didn't care to compose herself she just went off on her teacher and teammate openly making team nine look like a bunch of idiots. After a few minutes they eventually calmed down and recomposed, though it was quite pathetic.
"If you fools are done… let's get this over with," Kakuzu insisted.
Kakashi stepped in front of the Genin. "Stay out of this; none of you are remotely prepared for a battle with these guys," he ordered while unraveling his Sharingan. Sasuke's expression was of displeasure, likely seething at a moment where he was too weak to be of use simply mocked him. Sakura didn't seem to need any encouragement on the matter and Ino seemed unaffected entirely by the order.
Anko and Gai did the same on the other side, getting in front of team six. "Listen to my rival! These are not ordinary enemies." Neji nodded in annoyed acceptance on the other side where team nine and seven were both gathered. Tenten didn't like it but knew firsthand there wasn't much she could do; Lee simply gave an overly excited agreement for the sole reason that his sensei said so.
Back to where team six stood idly behind Anko and Gai…"What? Leave it to you guys!? Then why are we here?" Naruto argued.
"Shut up Naruto; are you trying to die or something? These guys are probably more dangerous than Inoanji Yamanaka!"
"Well why are we ninja then Kiba? So we can get front row seats to watch the action?"
The Inuzuka scowled at him. "And part of being a ninja is following orders!"
"Grr I never thought you were a coward Kiba!"
"It's not cowardice!" He objected. "It's not my fault you're an idiot and can't see-"
"GUYS!" Shikamaru intervened. "Shut up… I can't think with you two bickering like a couple of women." Naruto was about to retort but instead his mouth betrayed him succumbing to silence as Anko, Gai and Kakashi converged on the cloaked duo.
Gai targeted Kisame, knowing his efforts of using taijutsu were less than effective against the former Waterfall ninja whose jutsu was perfect for repelling physical attacks. "Don't rely on taijutsu against that guy; he has a body hardening jutsu!" He shouted at his allies before they assaulted Kakuzu.
Kisame smirked at the approaching spandex clad Jonin with anticipation. "I still find it hard to believe you're Maito Gai," he stated, raising Samehada to block Gai's attack. The bandages at the tip of the blade stripped and Samehada's scales cut into Gai's leg and he disengaged eying the sword with confusion. "Mighty stupid looking guy if you ask me."
Gai ignored the banter and assessed the sword's capabilities. So the sword absorbs chakra… and doesn't have an actual blade but extremely sharp scales in its place. Kisame chuckled at Gai's calculating face. "Go on and admire it; it doesn't slash it cuts you to ribbons!" He declared, raising it as he prepared to counterattack.
Gai whipped out his nunchuks in an instant and struck at the sword, one end of the nunchuks wrapped around and Gai grabbed it with his free hand then applied force in opposite directions holding the sword at bay but Kisame only laughed. "You'll have to do better than that," He warned as Gai's hold wavered. He's strong. The Leaf's Green Beast recollected, giving up on that strategy releasing his attempt at stopping the attack and evading Samehada's scales.
He leapt back, escaping his range. It was turning out that Kisame was no pushover either, and like Gai he was prominent in close range combat, but unlike Kakuzu, Gai knew he could hurt this ninja. The ex-Mist ninja was not going to be an easy opponent to battle with, but Gai loved a challenge!
Meanwhile Gai's allies made their own assault against Kakuzu. Kakashi dragged behind slightly, preferring to observe his opponent's defense of Anko with his Sharingan before making a play of his own, though he did launch a quick flurry of shuriken. The Akatsuki member raised a single arm up, and his skin darkened as the shuriken buried themselves into his arm. That must be his body hardening jutsu that Gai spoke of… Earth style. Hatake noted.
Anko wanted to test out his taijutsu prowess for herself, and also wanted to try and lure him into using that bizarre thread jutsu again because she had an idea to counter it that she wanted to try out. When the Akatsuki member's skin tone darkened she mentally inferred that was the jutsu Gai warned them about right before engaging. Her assumption was correct, as Kakuzu did not even flinch at the blow she planted in his gut and he smacked her across the face before slamming his foot into her stomach augmenting the damage through the Earth Spear technique and then sent her sailing away with a roundhouse.
Kakashi moved in lashing out with kunai in each hand; Kakuzu niftily evaded the first five strikes before he countered by detaching one hand expanding his reach with Jiongu and grabbing Kakashi by the throat, black tendrils capturing his wrists preventing him from slashing himself free with the kunai. He's fast… with such unique abilities it's hard to follow, even with the Sharingan. The Leaf Jonin noted. The Akatsuki turned his attention back to Anko as she bolted towards him again, smirking away. The bounty hunter detached his other hand and tried the same tactic on her once she got close, as he expected she was prepared for it catching his hand but she allowed the tendrils to wrap around her with a welcoming attitude. Snakes crept out of her sleeves, very thin brown ones intertwining themselves with Jiongu's tendrils. The snakes bit the threads with ferocity but accomplished nothing.
"It will take more than that to break these tendrils you fool."
Anko was still smirking though, holding his hand back, struggling to keep it from reaching her throat. "We'll see; Akatsuki scumbag."
"Damn it, they need our help already!" Kiba exclaimed.
"See I told you sitting here was a bad idea!" Naruto rubbed in.
"Let's go; come on!"
"No, stay put Kiba," The Nara commanded.
"But look at them! He's kicking their ass!"
"Yeah and we're Genin," Shikamaru stated narrowing his eyes on his teammate. "There's no way you're going to just charge in there without a plan and successfully do anything without getting killed. We have to play this out right if everyone's planning on coming home."
Naruto grunted. "Screw that, they need us now! I'm not going to wait for him to kill them while you sit there and play chess with yourself in your head!" The infuriated Uzumaki snapped, charging at Kakuzu.
"Damn it," Shikamaru grumbled, making the handsign for Shadow Possession and snaring Naruto before he was even halfway over there.
"What the!? Traitor!" Naruto shouted angrily. Anko let out a sigh of relief that the Nara was on top of things. That's right… keep him out of this, we only need to last a couple more minutes.
The Akatsuki's green eyes looked over Naruto with amusement. "You're not very smart," he taunted in his dark voice.
"Shut up! No one asked you!"
"Naruto! I'm not letting you run in there by yourself like a total idiot. So settle down and be ready for when we do have to do something, because otherwise you're going to just sit here and force me to waste my chakra," Shikamaru pressed.
Gai had just released four of the inner gates, now his speed was proving to be a problem for the Hoshigaki clan member. If I take his sword from him, I have no doubt that he'll be unable to keep up with me for much longer. Gai thought, ducking from a swipe of Samehada. And I still have more inner gates to release if need be. He sidestepped another attack from the mostly bandaged sword and then stepped in with remarkable speed dishing out a flurry of punches to Kisame's exposed ribcage and just as quickly leapt back out of Samehada's range.
"Your hit and run tactics are annoying," Kisame chuckled, holding his ribs. "But I'll admit I'm still having fun at least."
Ignoring the playful comment went back on the offensive. The ex-Mist ninja struck out with Samehada again, but the sword went right through the blur that used to be Gai. What the? Before Kisame knew what was happening, the green blur of a foot collided with his head and sent him flying and Samehada had been ripped from his grip. Gai spun the sword and around and threw it where team seven and nine's Genin were gathered. Lee had to step back to avoid the sword that fixated into the dirt in front of him. "Tenten! Seal away!" Her sensei commanded.
Kisame struggled to his feet. "Damn you," he yelled out running towards the Genin, making handsigns.
Tenten hurriedly searched through her backpack, pulling out an empty storage scroll. "PROTECT TENTEN!" Neji suddenly bursted the order out to all the Genin around her, him and Lee getting in front of her.
Gai meanwhile intercepted Kisame with his insane speed. "LEAF HURRICANE!" He bellowed but his foot strangely created a splash rather than knock a rogue ninja across the battlefield. Water clone. He realized, landing and looking around. "Neji!" He shouted absentmindedly.
"Byakugan!" He announced, activating the kekkei genkai and spotting the Akatsuki immediately.
"Out of the way!" he demanded throwing an explosive kunai at the ground and several of the Genin including himself were forced to jump back to avoid the detonation.
As the smoke cleared they could see Kisame, who had been tunneling underground, prying himself out of the scarred surface of the ground less than amused. "I suppose I should've expected that, you're a Hyuga after all," he reprimanded himself as Gai once again got in front of the Genin.
"It's done!" Tenten announced as Samehada vanished in a miniature cloud of smoke.
"Excellent work Tenten! Gai-sensei will have him on the ropes now!" Lee cheered.
"Yes great job! You as well, Neji!" Gai also complimented, giving one of those impeccably awkward thumbs up and creepy smiles routines.
Man, team nine is way better than us… Ino thought. Even if they are totally weird.
They found a way to be useful, and I've still done absolutely nothing. Sasuke thought to himself, anger beginning to boil inside.
"Well you're not as stupid as you look, but if you think I can't fight without Samehada you are gravely mistaken…" Kisame warned.
Anko's gaze shifted from Kakuzu to Kakashi, who was beginning turn blue. Kakuzu's grip on his throat was about to cause him to pass out. Damn it, this is taking too long. She opened wide and shot a larger green snake out of her mouth right passed the surprised Akatsuki and clamped the mouth of it on the hand around Kakashi, pulling it back as far as it could… giving the copy ninja a chance to take in some air.
"You should be worried about yourself," the rogue advised, suddenly pushing the other hand that was directed at her with renewed effort.
"I… could say… the same to… you," Anko struggled to retort, barely keeping the hand from clenching her neck.
His grip is faltering… Kakashi noticed a moment later. Kakuzu's calm demeanor took a hit as he suddenly let out a series of ferocious coughs. The tendrils of Jiongu's grip weakened with each cough and both Kakashi and Anko were able to break loose. Anko withdrew the snake form her mouth and licked her lips with creepy satisfaction.
"What the hell… did you do?" The bounty hunter demanded through coughs.
"I baited you into capturing me," she revealed haughtily. "I sent a strong and rare poison through those tendrils of yours, and I suppose my choice of where to insert it into your system is why it took longer than usual to take effect. But it doesn't matter, you're done for…"
"All right Anko-sensei!" Naruto cheered as Shikamaru sighed in relief and released his shadow possession.
"I guess we should've expected her to do something like that…" Kiba thought aloud. "If she was trying to break free she would've used larger snakes."
Anko smiled as Kakuzu stopped breathing. "Team Anko one, Akatsuki zero!"
"I never agreed to calling us team Anko…" Kakashi mumbled.
"Well they generally name the squads after the best ninja on the team," She remarked arrogantly.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "So you think you're better than me huh?"
"Well I honestly can't say… but I do know I have more Akatsuki kills than you," She gloated.
The Sharingan user sighed. "Let's help Gai before his body suffers too much from opening the inner gates."
"Right," she agreed in a way too cheerful demeanor for someone who was just snared in a trap of strange tendrils and had someone trying to choke her. "Hey, wait up!" She spat as Kakashi moved on without her.
Kakashi made a cautious but fast approach towards the back of the ex-Mist ninja, using the Silent Killing technique he had copied off of Zabuza in his recent mission in the Land of Waves. He drew closer, and closer and Kisame had still made no indication that he'd been noticed as he prepared to leap forward and strike. He raised his hand and channeled lightning chakra through it, forming the Chidori. Kisame finally caught on upon hearing the lightning jutsu ignite and his bizarre eyes widened as he raised an arm to block Gai's strike. But before the impact could be made someone blindsided him and sent him skidding across the terrain.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura blurted with concern.
"How in the fuck are you alive!?" Anko shouted with incredulity as Kakuzu landed by Kisame and the two engaged Gai together forcing him to fall back.
"Heh, what took you so long?"
"Shut up Kisame," his green irises narrowing on Anko with vengeful intent.
"But how… he couldn't have faked his death. Why would he? He had us both with no incentive to let us escape like that. He had nothing to gain so he surely couldn't have been merely acting." Kakashi analyzed. Anko said it was a rare poison so it seems unlikely he was carrying a cure, and I didn't notice him take one if he did.
"Byakugan," Neji stated, examining the somehow living rogue ninja.
Tenten watched Neji's confused facial expressions with interest. "What is it? What do you see?"
"I…I don't know Tenten… I'm not sure how it's possible but he appears to have four beating hearts!"
The Genin of all three teams stared at him and then at Kakuzu with alarmed shock and amazement. Four beating hearts? How many strange and unique abilities does this guy have? Shikamaru pondered. I'm guessing that if he dies his body switches to the next one and revives him, and tissue or bone damage is repaired by those bizarre threads flowing throughout his system. But that means.. we have to kill him four more times?! Man, what a drag this mission is turning into.
A/N: Gonna cut it off there for now. Let me know what yall think =)
